Obesity & Diabetes

Obesity and Inactivity -- The Biggest Threat to the Nation’s Health

A critical component to the success of the current health care overhaul and the biggest challenge facing most Americans today is acquiring sufficient amounts of daily physical activity to combat obesity and the onset of America’s most dangerous health adversaries: heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Treadmill desks represent a unique solution that allow individuals the opportunity of obtaining healthy exercise to combat the rising tide of obesity while still completing their work responsibilities at the office.

America’s health reform will be severely compromised without an all out war on obesity and inactivity. TrekDesk offers a valuable tool in the nation’s biggest health battle.

A study published with the annual America’s Health Rankings report cast a long shadow on the future of American health care by predicting that by 2018 43% of the adult American population will be obese and the cost of obesity related diseases will more than quadruple to $344 billion annually, 21% of total health care spending.

Stated simply, obesity has become a threat not only to our health but economic security and sustainable quality of life.

Currently, health care providers are incentivized to treat disease more than to prevent it. They often see the patient at the point where care is most expensive and least likely to be effective. Greater emphasis on screening, prevention and patient education are essential.

Employers over the last generation have engineered movement out of the workspace environment and should be encouraged to re-engineer the work place with a variety of measures which introduce natural movement back into the workplace. We evolved over millions of years as an upright species dependent upon movement for overall health, this must be reintroduced into the work environment or even the best potential outcome of healthcare reform will have been in vain.

One solution that is showing promise to both corporate employees and home office users is the TrekDesk treadmill desk. TrekDesk is a full sized, height adjustable workstation designed to attach to an existing treadmill.

“We originally designed TrekDesk to be used by small businesses and home office users but have had significant interest from corporate users as well due to cost efficiencies.” states Steve Bordley, owner of TrekDesk. “Allowing users to add TrekDesk to an existing treadmill or to select a specific brand of treadmill has many distinct advantages. First, the cost basis is much lower. TrekDesk also offers users the opportunity of capitalizing on the incline features of a treadmill. In essence an employee can burn 2x the amount of calories walking at the same slow speed while working. An added benefit for home users is the dual use capacity of the treadmill, they can walk during their work day and use it later as a running machine if they so choose.”

The health benefits of daily walking are well documented. Previous studies have shown that overweight individuals who engage in regular exercise have even less health risks than normal weight individuals who are sedentary however more recent studies spotlight the need to both stay active during the day and lose excess pounds.

“Chairs are the enemy,” states Bordley, “once employers realize this and adopt measures to keep their employees moving during the day they will see a boost in productivity and a decrease in sick days and health care costs. Many companies are rotating employees on two hour shifts to treadmill desks, the health benefits are becoming obvious.”

Daily use of a treadmill desk can also help prevent many major diseases, increase productivity, boost mood, and restore health. “People seem to focus most on the weight loss achieved by using a treadmill desk which can be significant however the health restorative, mental and mood enhancing benefits are significant as well,” states Bordley.